Stanford’s David Shaw says he doesn’t know how other Pac-12 North teams stand

If you follow Pac-12 football closely, you probably know that No. 24 Stanford and No. 14 Washington State — who meet Saturday at Stanford Stadium — are 3-1 in conference play. They trail No. 15 Washington (4-1) closely in the North Division.

But if you don’t know all the records as the climactic weeks of the regular season approach, you’re not alone. In fact, one person who doesn’t know all the records — and doesn’t know who’s playing whom in the coming weeks — is Stanford’s head coach.

Asked Tuesday how likely it will be that the North champion will have two conference losses, as Stanford did when it reached the title game last year, David Shaw pleaded ignorance.

“I have no idea what anybody else’s record is,” he said. “That may surprise you. Why should I care? We have one loss in the conference, and typically whoever wins our conference has one loss.

“I know if we win the rest of our games, we’ll be in the Pac-12 championship game. If we don’t, then it’s a toss-up. I have no idea what is going on anyplace else, and I don’t have the time or energy to care.”

Realistically, there are four teams in the running in the North, counting No. 19 Oregon (2-2 Pac-12). The Ducks would have been in much better position if they hadn’t handed a game to Stanford with critical mistakes.

Shaw said he had “no idea” how to assess Stanford’s division chances. After WSU (4 p.m. Saturday as part of the reunion homecoming), the Cardinal play at Washington, Oregon State at home, at Cal and at UCLA.

“We have the ability to beat everyone on our schedule, and everybody on our schedule has the ability to beat us,” Shaw said. “It comes down to game-day execution and planning.”

Here are the other contenders’ remaining games:

•UW — at Cal, Stanford, Oregon State, at WSU

•WSU — at Stanford, Cal, at Colorado, Arizona and Washington

•Oregon — at Arizona, UCLA, at Utah, Arizona State, at Oregon State

Whether the Cardinal will have one of their key playmakers Saturday is still up in the air. Tailback Bryce Love is “day to day” because of his sore left ankle, Shaw said. “We’ll find out more later in the week.” Guard Nate Herbig is also a question mark. Outside linebacker Joe Alfieri will be out a few weeks as a result of an undisclosed injury sustained in Thursday’s 20-13 win at ASU.

Quarterback K.J. Costello’s throwing hand was bloodied when one of the Sun Devils stepped on it, but Shaw said he “finished the game with no issues. He threw the ball really well.”

Shaw said Costello’s hand was not a factor in his decision to stick to the ground game for practically the entire fourth quarter in an effort to protect a 20-6 lead. ASU scored a touchdown with 7:50 left and reached the Stanford 18 just before time expired.

Shaw again defended his strategy, although he admitted many college and NFL teams wouldn’t have gone into a shell in the same situation.

“If we didn’t do what we did at the end of the game, they might have had a timeout left,” he said. If the Sun Devils had a timeout left at the end of the game, he said, they could have taken two shots at the end zone. “Glad we did what we did.”

Briefly: Both Jordan Fox and Gabe Reid will play in Alfieri’s place, Shaw said. ... Jack Richardson subbed for one play after Costello’s hand injury Thursday. Davis Mills, though still listed as the No. 2 backup, remains out with an undisclosed injury.

Tom FitzGerald has been the Stanford beat writer for the San Francisco Chronicle since 2009 and has gone to a bowl game every year with the Cardinal football team. He also covers men’s and women’s basketball and many other Stanford sports.

He also covers motor sports in the Bay Area and wrote about the America's Cup regatta in San Francisco in 2013, during which Oracle Team USA made one of the greatest comebacks in sports history to beat Emirates Team New Zealand.

Among the many momentous games he has covered were the 49ers' victory over Dallas in the 1982 NFC Championship Game, which featured "The Catch'' by Dwight Clark, and the U.S. hockey team’s 1980 Olympic upset of the Soviet Union in Lake Placid, N.Y. At the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, he rode the bobsled run with members of the U.S. team for a first-person story. He also rode on Russell Coutts’ Oracle Team USA catamaran in 2012 and in an Indy car with legendary Mario Andretti in 2014 for other first-person stories.

For 15 years he wrote a popular sports humor column called "Top of the Sixth" (later re-titled "Open Season"). A weekly version of the column was nationally syndicated in as many as 50 daily newspapers.

He has a degree in political science from the University of Massachusetts. He lives in Benicia.